Herds of elephants living on the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya star in tomorrow's "Secret Life of Elephants."

IN 1993, Iain Douglas- Hamilton, a world-re nowned elephant con servationist, grew so alarmed at the rate at which elephants were disappearing that he founded something called “Save The Elephants.”

While “Save The Elephants” sounds more like a bumper sticker than a place, it is actually an organization located on the huge 100-square-mile Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. Obviously, the group’s sole purpose is doing what it sounds like — saving the world’s largest land mammal.

What Douglas-Hamilton, his daughter, Saba and Dr. David Daballen, the group’s chief veterinarian, have created there is not just a haven for elephants, but systems for tracking the beasts. Using these systems allows them to study the behaviors of the herds and the individuals inside the herds without interfering in the natural order of things.

Tomorrow night you can see what this combination of state-of-the-art hi-tech equipment and good, old-fashioned field work has brought to our knowledge of the great beasts on Animal Planet’s documentary, “Secret Life of Elephants.”

While I don’t know that there’s anything “secret” — other than the reason producers would use a title that makes it sound like an elephant porno-peeper film — watching these animals interact with each other, mourn their dead and struggle to save their injured babies still makes for heart-tuggingly watchable TV.

OK, yes, I’m a sucker for baby anythings, but you’d have to be the son of Satan to keep it dry-eyed when one of the babies has a bad leg and limps and cries while trying to keep up with the “family” (they travel in small herds). It’s astounding to watch his mother separate from her group just to try to stay with her little one who is stumbling and in pain.

There is one segment with another baby elephant that is so badly injured that tears were flowing down my face. It is only at times like this that the veterinarian will step in.

Then there’s the scene in which one of the adult elephants has died and the others come ’round to not just figure out what happened, but to mourn. When other herds hear the cries, they travel to the area to pay their respects at the “wake.”

The herds, we learn, are totally matriarchal and the bulls are solitary, and come around only at mating season like Thursday-night singles barflies — at yes — watering holes, where sex is the dance of choice.

You’ll be happy to know that the matriarch of the herd gets to pick the bull of her secreting-gland-dreams out herself — and tells all the rest of the panting slobs to take a hike. Literally.